bathroom wiring question

19 years ago

Hello,

We're romodeling and updating one of our bathrooms. I'm going to run a new 20amp line for the (2) gfci outlets near the vanity.

Questions:

1) How far do the outlets have to be from the sink/vanity, both vertically on the wall up from the vanity, and horizontally from the edge of the sink? The vanity will be 48" with one sink in the middle.

2) I am also installing a fan above the shower. There was not a fan in this bathroom before. Can I run this off of the new 20amp line? or does the fan have to be segregated from the outlets? in which case can I run it the existing service in the room?

Thanks in advance.

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Comments (7)

lanelu46
19 years ago
20A circut dedicated bathroom gfci outlets only, thats it. Fan above shower- tap off lighting circut. Don't put fan above shower. If you do, buy gfci/switch combo to protect youself. 2005 NEC 210.52 (D) In dwelling units, at least one outlet must be installed in bathrooms within 3ft(900mm) of the outside edge of each basin. Put the outlet about 6in above counter top. Enough room for possible 4in backsplash.
samneric
19 years ago
20A circut dedicated bathroom gfci outlets only, thats it.

Since this circuit only supplies one bathroom, the fan can be powered by the 20 amp receptacle circuit as long as it doesn't draw over 10 amps (50% of circuit rating). [NEC 210.11(C)(3) Exception]

Don't put fan above shower. If you do, buy gfci/switch combo to protect youself.

Or power the in-shower fan off the load side of one of the GFCI receptacles.
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lanelu46
19 years ago
Yes, but the orig. post said he was remodeling ONE of his bathrooms. That tells me he has more than one bathroom were your exception would be invalid.
samneric
19 years ago
It's not "my" exception, it's the NEC's. And its validity is not determined by the number of bathrooms that exist in a single residence, but on the number of bathrooms supplied by a single 20 amp circuit. I assumed that to be one bathroom in this case, since only one was being remodeled.

However many it actually is, the poster didn't get a response for 2 days and has probably wandered off...
hgput
Original Author
19 years ago
I'm confused now. Can I run the fan off of the new 20 amp circuit after the GFCI outlet?

There are other bathrooms in the house, but not remotely close to this one. So logistically, I could not combine circuit of this bathroom with any other.

Thank you for you help.
rjoh878646
19 years ago
Yes you can run the fan off the load side of the 20A GFCI outlet.
Make sure you purchase a 20A GFCI outlet not a 15A GFCI outlet.

I believe this was all covered in another thread in this forum.
normel
19 years ago
You do NOT have to use a 20A GFCI receptacle, a 15A will be just fine.

Yes, you may run the vent fan off the load side of the GFCI receptacle as long as the circuit is dedicated to that bathroom.

With a 48in vanity with a sink in the middle, place receptacles on either side of the sink, approximately 2in above the backsplash and at a location that does not interfere with any mirror you may be using. Only one of these needs to be a GFCI receptacle, the other can be a standard receptacle fed from the load side of the GFCI.